Borescope inspections are an important part of any maintenance routine. They improve safety while saving time and money.
Borescopes, also called videoscopes, offer an excellent way to inspect the internal components of aviation, as well as other turbine engines. They can help to diagnose problems, but they are also well-placed as part of routine maintenance tasks. Preventive maintenance can be just as important as making repairs as and when they are necessary. In fact, it can be even more important because it helps to prevent problems from developing. This saves time and money and can help to greatly improve safety too.
Borescopes have wide applications and, in addition to being used in aviation and to inspect turbine engines, are also used in the plumbing, HVAC, and manufacturing industries. Using a borescope to check the health of an engine or internal aviation components such as fixed wings and rotor wings makes maintenance and safety checks easier than ever.
What Does a Borescope Inspection Involve?
A borescope inspection involves using a camera to look into the inside of an engine or other difficult-to-reach areas. Typically, the borescope will have a length of cable with an LED light on the end that is inserted for visibility. Borescopes can be rigid or flexible, either working in a fixed position or offering the flexibility to snake through narrow and challenging spaces. Flexible borescopes can be particularly useful for inspection engines or other parts that might not be suitable for inspecting with a rigid borescope.
Borescopes are an ideal way to carry out maintenance inspections in a non-damaging way. They can be used to gently inspect different components without affecting their integrity. They can be positioned in any way that’s necessary to get a good view of the part that needs to be inspected. The video can be recorded and many borescope tools also feature Bluetooth to allow images to be shared directly.
Why Are Borescope Inspections an Important Part of Turbine and Aviation Maintenance?
There are many essential reasons to include borescope inspections as part of your routine maintenance. Preventive maintenance helps to prevent future problems and is essential for aviation and engine safety. Borescopes can take the pain out of inspections, making them easier and more convenient. With a borescope inspection, you can immediately get clear images of spaces that are otherwise difficult to see. Regular borescope inspections allow important decisions to be made about repairs, replacements, or routine maintenance that might need to be carried out. Even small changes can be spotted so that the right action can be taken.
Borescopes can be particularly useful in a number of situations. Where there is limited access, borescope inspections can reach difficult areas and provide a clear image of key components. For any parts or components that are mission-critical, it becomes even more important to implement a borescope for a full inspection. Borescopes can be useful for all kinds of troubleshooting. They can provide vital information that fills in gaps in existing knowledge so that the correct solution can be found.
Keep reading to find out more about why routine borescope inspections are important.
Save Time and Money
The use of borescope equipment to carry out routine inspections can be one of the best available ways to save money. Preventive maintenance can often reduce expenses compared to responding to repair and maintenance issues only when they arise and begin to cause problems. When regular inspections and routine maintenance are carried out, it can prevent issues that might bring activity to a halt or cause further trouble. Borescope inspections make it possible to pick up on even the smallest of issues that need to be corrected. They allow you to keep a close eye on the health of any important components so that the best care can be provided at all times.
Fixing small issues and making adjustments as part of a regular maintenance routine can be a lot less expensive than having to make repairs when something major breaks. Preventive maintenance is generally more affordable and more profitable than reactive maintenance. Instead of waiting to see what might go wrong, it’s possible to have a clear overview of the condition of any engine or other parts and equipment. Decisions can be made faster and the correct action can be taken sooner, helping to prevent disasters, downtime, and other problems.
Borescope inspections are an affordable option for carrying out routine inspections and maintenance. Borescope equipment can be hired or bought, or inspection services can be scheduled to complete regular inspections. High-quality equipment with excellent video quality is more affordable than ever, enabling cheaper aviation maintenance and more. When equipment is more affordable, it means hiring an aviation engine inspector is more cost-effective too.
Improve Safety
Safety is clearly a key concern for anyone in aviation or working with turbine engines of any kind. Anything that can help to improve safety in an efficient and affordable way is extremely useful. Adding borescope inspections to your routine maintenance is one of the easiest ways to improve safety and reduce the likelihood of anything going wrong. Regular safety inspections are a must, but you’re not getting the full picture if you can’t inspect the internal spaces in engines and other parts.
Regular safety inspections are crucial in aviation or anything related to the use of powerful engines. You never want to discover a safety problem too late, and safety inspections with borescope equipment can ensure you pick up on any issues as soon as possible. Borescope inspections can be used to perform safety checks before a flight, after a period of disuse, after damage has been sustained, or on a regular schedule so that safety problems can be identified quickly.
Increase Efficiency
Excellent improvements in efficiency can be made by using borescope inspections regularly. Borescope inspections allow the inspection of engines and other features without having to resort to disassembly. Having to take a component apart to inspect it thoroughly is very time-consuming, which subsequently also costs money. It could take multiple hours to disassemble an engine with two experienced mechanics working on the job. It also means more downtime for the craft, which can mean that businesses lose money while waiting for the job to be complete. Borescope inspections significantly shorten the time it takes to complete an inspection and start making decisions about what to do next.
Borescope inspections provide essential information about the condition of engines so that faster and more correct decisions can be made. With images of parts of the engine that otherwise can’t be observed without taking it apart, maintenance teams can act quickly when repairs are required. They can also use the images to make better decisions about routine maintenance and what needs to change to further prevent any problems from occurring. More efficiency can be gained by making the right maintenance decisions.
Additionally, the images from a borescope inspection can help to provide more context to other information about the engine and how it’s performing. The mechanic may be aware of a problem but without knowing exactly what’s causing it. A borescope inspection provides visual imagery that helps to provide further clues and means that diagnostics are more accurate and efficient.
Borescope Inspections Are Easy to Implement
Adding borescope injections to your regular maintenance schedule is easy. If you want to buy or lease equipment, learning to use it is easier than you might imagine. Minimal training is required and it’s often not too difficult to identify anything that is seen through the borescope. More experienced users can soon learn to identify more subtle problems. Or if you want to have a professional carry out the inspection, that’s simple to add to your maintenance routine too. Scheduling the services that you need, once you have found a service provider that’s right for you, will ensure you never miss another inspection.
After implementing routine borescope inspections, you can also make changes to the rest of your preventive maintenance schedule. Incorporating borescope inspections presents the opportunity to change how decisions are made and what other regular maintenance might need to take place.
What a Borescope Inspection Can Pick Up and What to Look For
Borescopes are often used to inspect turbine engines. In fact, it is one of the main ways they are used. They can be used to look for corrosion, cracking, or shifting of the combustion chamber. Borescopes are often used to inspect turbine blades, fuel nozzles, burner cans, ignitors, and air-cooling fans, among other elements. In addition to being used in aviation maintenance, they are also frequently applied in other ways, from looking at other turbine engines to being used to inspect plumbing.
Some of the things to look out for when inspecting an aircraft and its engines include:
Leaks
Leaks in an aircraft’s engine can be big trouble. They could indicate the loss of essential fluids that are vital to the functioning of the aircraft. Additionally, they could contain contaminants that are capable of damaging the engine itself. Leaks need to be identified and repaired as quickly as possible, and borescope inspections can help to ensure this happens. Leaks cannot be ignored or spotted soon enough. Routine borescope inspections ensure they can be picked up as soon as possible, instead of waiting until they become more noticeable and start causing problems.
Lack of Lubrication
Proper lubrication is vital for various different parts in an engine or across any aircraft. Lubrication may need to be applied regularly, but it’s also desirable to avoid unnecessary lubrication, which could lead to wasted money or over-lubrication. Inspecting parts that require lubrication with a borescope enables visual oversight of whether everything is adequately lubricated. A lack of lubrication can be caused by other problems such as the engine burning oil or too much or too little friction. Regular borescope inspections will help to pick up on poor lubrication and the potential cause.
Signs of Wear
Everything shows signs of wear over time, but it can be even more important to keep an eye on how quickly wear is noticeable in an aircraft. If a part is wearing out faster than it should be, it could be an indication that there is a bigger problem that needs to be addressed. Routine borescope inspections allow the monitoring of any areas where signs of wear and tear may appear so that any problems can be addressed quickly.
Dirt and Debris
Aircraft engines are designed to prevent dirt and debris from entering the fluids. If fluids or fuel systems are contaminated, it can cause big problems for the engine and the rest of the aircraft. Contaminated fuel can cause problems such as fuel cell corrosion and corrosion in the fuel system components. It could also lead to clogged fuel filters, failure of instrumentation, or a blocked fuel supply. When carrying out borescope inspections, these issues can be identified quickly and the cause of the problem can be found so that it can be repaired.
Cracking
When there is a crack in any engine, it needs to be repaired or the relevant part replaced as soon as possible. This serious problem could cause further issues so it’s vital to discover any cracks quickly and deal with them right away. A small crack could start off as only a tiny problem that won’t really have any significant effect. However, it could soon become a much larger problem if it isn’t dealt with right away. In some cases, it may be possible to smooth out a crack in a blade or another component so that the issue can be rectified quickly and in a cost-effective manner.
Make Borescope Inspections Part of Your Routine Maintenance
Borescope inspections can become an invaluable part of any standard maintenance schedule or safety check routine. They are an efficient and effective way to keep a close watch over the condition of any engine or other vital parts where gaining increased visibility is required. Borescope inspections help to identify issues of all kinds, providing essential visual information that can be used with other data to make better decisions regarding maintenance and repairs. Adding borescope inspections to your maintenance schedule saves time and money, and improves safety.
If you have any questions on which aviation borescope is right for you, please reach out to one of our skilled borescope professionals at Sales@USABorescopes.com
